


Crouched in the half light

by Silberias



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sansa cleopatra's the Mannis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:17:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6328840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lady Sansa of the House Stark, one of the paramours of Prince Oberyn Martell, comes with the Dornish to King's Landing. She comes out of curiosity towards Stannis, King of the Seven Kingdoms at long last, a man who develops his own curiosity towards her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crouched in the half light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tommyginger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommyginger/gifts).



> Title is from "(You Will) Set the World on Fire" by David Bowie. Give it a listen.

"She is reckless on a horse," the Dornishman said from where he leaned against a post in the stables, watching, as Stannis himself did, as Lady Sansa put one of Shireen's horses through it's paces in the yard. "She learned it from one of my knights, and now she's one of the best riders in Dorne."

Stannis didn't say anything other than shift from foot to foot and try to think of the monsters and demons that he'd seen in the high north, above the Wall, before he'd taken his throne here. Anything but think of how Lady Sansa could probably ride a _man_ with the same skill.

A short glance over towards Prince Oberyn revealed a sly grin on the man's lips and a devil's twinkle in his eye. She'd ridden that man, no doubt, and he'd certainly appreciated it. Stannis felt a tickle in the back of his throat and coughed, trying to keep away images of what Lady Sansa looked like under her already scant dresses. He nearly--nearly--jumped when Prince Oberyn passed close by him and whispered "but she is yet a wolf girl, with all the attached pleasures."

Prince Oberyn's eyes danced with mischief now, for he knew he had Stannis' complete attention, willing or not, and his next words had the king hurrying out of the yard and back to his rooms--bolting the door after he got there--

"You know, we came here for her curiosity. She wanted to see for herself whether you are as implacable as stone or if you are as fierce a lover as you are a warrior. My darling wolf girl is quite convinced Your Grace could fuck a woman boneless if you wanted to, but you won't let yourself do it."

The peaceful silence of his room calmed his racing heart and eventually his cock too. It had been a long time since he had wanted a woman as badly as he did the Lady Sansa of the House Stark. His self-control didn't last though, or his peace, because a walk late that evening in the gardens gave him the sounds Lady Sansa made when in the throws of passion--little sharp pants, a keening moan, encouragements. Stannis had been walking, not looking at the gardens only focusing on not thinking about Lady Sansa when he'd heard them, and then spied on them through the trees. Prince Oberyn and his lovers--Sansa and Ellaria--on the grass, half their clothes gone the other half in disarray. The Dornishwoman had Prince Oberyn's cock in her mouth while Lady Sansa-- _lady_?--knelt over the Prince's face. Their sounds of pleasure, small cries and moans--and in Sansa's case panting and requests for more--were enough that Stannis had a trickle of sweat slide cold down his back. His cock was hard and straining and it took everything he had not to unbelt himself enough to take care of the problem.

That might have been the end of it, for he immediately sought to put distance between himself and Lady Sansa. Within a week he announced, for the first time in his reign, a hunt. Only the lords invited would attend him, the women would be left at court. Perhaps his lust could be cured by throwing his focus towards the sporting of the hunt.

And it might well have been the last of it--the evening fading into his memory, to be used when his body ached too badly for release and he gave in--but for the fact that on the first night of the hunt, far out in the Kingswood where they had made camp, he opened the trunk supposedly containing his clothing and found Lady Sansa curled inside instead.

Naked--his mind supplied belatedly--Lady Sansa curled up in his clothes trunk naked.

She had him captivated as she stood up, stretching with easy and lazy movements as though she hadn't spent the better part of a day in a box. Her breasts were those of a woman, full and well formed, and Stannis ached when she took his hand and put it not to one of those perfect teats but between them where her heart beat steadily. Her hair brushed the back of his hand, too, the red waves impossibly soft.

"My lady, you--"

"Don't be cross," she said, a smile on her face as she pushed Stannis back towards the chair that he'd vainly taken with him on this damned hunting trip. The point had been to avoid her, not have her alone in his tent, have Dornishmen circumventing his Kingsguard--

Instead of letting him sit she undressed him and set about kissing his thighs and ghosting warm little breaths over his cock--and he sucked in a shocked gasp when she took him into her mouth. Stannis hardly dared look down at Prince Oberyn's little paramour but he did eventually. Her teeth never even brushed him, and fuck--fuck-- _fuck._

Stannis tried to stumble away from her, to keep from dishonoring her further--other men might have said there was little point, she having been a Dornishman's whore for years already--but she grabbed his hips with surprisingly strong hands and swallowed down the lot. The needy sounds that filled his tent, Stannis realized, were not only her muffled ones but his as well. He sank down to the ground, half falling, sweat making his hot skin cold. Stannis gasped in his breaths even as he reached to her and pulled her to him for a kiss, growling as he claimed her mouth.

"Your Grace, are you well?" Ser Loras called from the front entrace to the tent and both of them froze. Stannis stared down at Sansa, one thumb daring to trace down her cheek. Gods, her eyes were so blue.

"Yes, Ser Loras, quite," he said, standing and wrapping a fur from his bed about his shoulders. To hell with this--he had no wife he was dishonoring and he was King. He was _the_ King. Lady Sansa watched him as he walked to the entrance and stuck his head out. The man had only kept his head, disfigured as it was these days, because he had dragged himself to the Battle of the Wall to fight for the Realm. If five years ago someone had told Stannis his second most trusted man would be a Tyrell he would have banned them from his presence.

"Your Grace?" Half the man's curly brown hair had never grown back, and he walked with a limp as pronounced as that of Lord Willas, his brother. But still a dedicated soldier, Stannis had learned over the last few years. No doubt Stannis himself looked a sight--his thin hair grown a little long, the black locks curling at his neck, probably sticking there on account of his sweat.

"I am with," he paused, Lady Sansa's blue eyes burning up at him, "a lady whose reputation needs no scandal. Can I trust your discretion?" There was an ugly twist of a smile from the once-handsome man, self-deprecating in a way that made Stannis force Renly's handsome face from his mind.

"You can, Your Grace, your doings are your life--and I am to guard your life." Stannis nodded his acceptance of the answer and headed back inside, finding Lady Sansa laying naked on the bed that had been set up for him. Stannis approached her a little self-consciously, dropping the fur he'd taken with him and crawling towards her.

After that she had him where she wanted him apparently, for she coaxed a little hardness from his cock as she knelt up and sat in his lap and oh-so-gently guided him home. It was not the mindblowing pleasure of her sucking on him, but he had to breathe in the same air she exhaled and Lady Sansa traced delicate fingertips all along his back and neck as they sat locked together.

It was with a hesitant hand that he palmed one and then both of her breasts, leaning in and pressing soft kisses to her cheeks and neck. This was the kind of thing that started wars, bedding other men's women--but her skin was so soft. And she'd come to him on her own.

The golden tan on her was unbroken, meaning she'd lain somewhere naked letting the sun caress her the way she was letting him now. The thought made his cock harden and his fingers tug with sudden desperation--"sh, sh, no, stay with me, don't get in a rush," she said in a whisper, her sheath clenching down on him gently. It wasn't dignified, but it made Stannis whine at the back of his throat. Laying with a woman was for release or duty, not this--this--his breath hitched as she tightened around him again, slow and deliberate. She was enjoying the feel of his steadily hardening cock, it seemed, whispering filthy things into his ear as they gently moved together between long moments of stillness.

They went on like that for some time before he clutched her tight against him and spent inside her, curling up together beneath a fur that he had barely enough willpower to pull over them.

"Oberyn won our bet," she mumbled, clinging to him as his cock slipped out of her along with some of his spent seed, and Stannis tensed at the idea of the Dornishman mocking him, "I said you would throw me out and call me a whore, that it was too soon to come to you. He thought he saw something gentler in you."

They carried on for some time, the duration of the hunt actually. Each day he and the lords he'd taken with him would venture about in the Kingswood in search of game--Prince Oberyn riding close by often and smirking at Stannis' early morning yawns. Lady Sansa would help him dress in the pre-dawn light, her smiles sparkling and warm. Her cheeks still flushed from his attentions. She was waiting for him when he returned from the evening meal. Somehow Lady Sansa always had a meal of her own and as the days passed by he found himself eating less with his lords and making his way to his tent earlier.

It was certainly pleasant to lay skin to skin with her, buried inside her some nights, eating the occasional morsel she fed him--groaning deep in his throat when she giggled and tightened herself around him. Rest came easier to him as he fell into the pleasant rhythm and his cares fell away. This was the sort of indulgence that Renly and Robert had both engaged in--taking a lover, breathing fresh air, sleeping and waking when they pleased. Stannis might have worried he was falling into bad habits but couldn't bring himself to. Not when he could wake up in the middle of the night and pull Sansa close.

She was always Sansa those times, and Stannis let himself love her then.

It ended abruptly when they returned to court. Stannis awoke cold and wanting the first day back and he cursed her under his breath as he went about his morning. He could not marry her without causing an incident--either with the court, with them rejecting his choice in a woman who had fallen into bed with a Dornish snake, or with the Dornishmen who considered her half-wed already to Prince Oberyn. Stannis might scoff at gods and fools, but it was a stupid man who disregarded the troubles the Targaryens had had for centuries with the Dornish.

Still she came to court every day, acted poised and perfect as she accompanied either Prince Oberyn or the bastard woman Ellaria Sand. Stannis was curt to the point of cutting when they were within his sight, wanting nothing more than to hear the sounds they made together and being furious knowing there was no way to fulfill that desire. It was debasing to be brought so low by such women and were they different women than they were he would ban them from court.

As it was, Lady Sansa was still a lady despite her actions of bedding kings and Dornishmen and women. Ellaria Sand was the legal heir to her father's holdings in Dorne and the last thing he needed was an influential vassal of Princess Arianne returning to Dorne full of anger at the court of King's Landing. Prince Oberyn was nearing his fifties if he was nearing anything and that was the only boon from the situation that Stannis could think of.

The morning his lover left, a month after returning from the hunt, she stole a kiss from him right before he went into the Small Council chamber--and all Stannis could concentrate on was that her mouth was bitter, unable to decide if that was his imagination or reality. By the time his business inside the council chamber was concluded the tide had carried the Dornish envoy far from Blackwater Bay and Stannis had to harden his heart against Lady Sansa's abandonment. He tried to tell himself it was for the best--even Robert and his philandering ways had known better than to keep a mistress that was displayed for all the court to view, but every day she had remained in King's Landing had had Stannis finding fewer reasons to keep his distance from Lady Sansa.

Stannis wondered if he was foolish for secretly believing that Sansa's child, born a little more than half a year later, was his own. There was no evidence for such a belief, for Selyse had always struggled to conceive let alone birth a child--and Prince Oberyn was certainly gifted in terms of getting children on all manner of women. It was inappropriate to write to her himself but he did convince Davos to write a letter inviting the Martells to the celebration of Shireen's nameday--extended to Prince Doran's whole family.

They said, in rumors, that Lady Sansa's son was a solemn and quiet infant. They said that Prince Oberyn made no official claims of fathering the babe. They said that the Lady Wolf and Prince Viper were still devoted to one another, but made no move to unite their currently seperate households. They said a lot of things, and Stannis had to often tear his eyes away from the reports that his master of whispers--a young black skinned maester who came on good recommendation from Davos, who had been nursed by the man when he'd fallen ill in Oldtown. Maester Alleras minded his own business, and Stannis week by week grew used to the man's Dornish accent and firm tenor voice.

When Shireen's nameday came Stannis was awake hours before dawn. He'd been apprised by Maester Alleras that Prince Oberyn--and many highborn Dornishmen--made it a point to arrive in the early hours so as to avoid the pomp that so often accompanied official greetings. It made Dornishmen uncomfortable to have their women--sometimes noble lords of holdfasts in their own right--slighted and treated like pretty baubles, while their men were toasted and honored.

Stannis well understood, for he had the same reaction in terms of the difference between his treatment and that given to Shireen. His heir until he married and fathered a son.

"It would appear that we have been apprehended, my love," Prince Oberyn's voice was amused as he sighted Stannis in the torchlight. At his side on her own horse was Lady Sansa, her face filled with sweetness, a bundle clutched close to her front as she urged her mount towards the horse that Stannis sat astride.

"It only makes this better, do you not agree Your Grace?" She was close enough that if he reached he could touch her. The bundle in the crook of her arm wiggled and whimpered and Stannis felt sick. She brought the little bastard--to show him a dark skinned, black eyed, black haired child that was none of his. To gloat that she'd likely already carried her other lover's child when she bedded him. To show his failure and impotence.

"I--my lady, I--" he tried to find diplomatic words and clenched his jaw when he realized none were going to come. He wanted this woman, he wanted her to swell with a half dozen of his children, and he could not properly stomach the idea that she belonged to someone else of her own free will. That she was unattached meant he might order her to stay with him as his wife, but that she would hate him for depriving her of her freedom in such a manner. Never had there been better insight to why Robert had started a war over Lyanna Stark.

"Meet Brynden, Your Grace," she said into the ensuing silence, extending the bundle of her child towards him. Stannis felt bile mix with swallowed tears in the back of his throat but he gingerly took up the swaddled babe--surprised at the heft and weight of the infant, though he easily tucked the boy in the crook of his arm and looked down at the little face and if he hadn't been seated on his horse he might have fallen down.

It was like looking at Renly when he'd been but a babe. Thick black curls covered the child's head, skin pale as milk, and sleepy eyes that were just barely blue enough to show up in the torchlight that surrounded the little greeting party. Baratheon. This child was a Baratheon by blood. This was his natural-born son, a child named Brynden.

"I know your stance on bastards, and I did not want you to believe yourself beholden to me--I seduced you, after all--but he is old enough now that he is likely to survive and thrive. He should be with his family--"

"He should be with his mother," Stannis bit out, realizing too late that the words sounded like rejection of the harshest kind. He snapped his head towards her, not sparing Prince Oberyn a glance, and opened his mouth--searching for a way to soften his words to better fit his meaning.

"I heartily agree," Sansa said with a wan smile, "but his mother will never marry and his father is a king. Sons of kings should be reared by kings, not princes." The taste of bile and salt was strong in his throat again and Stannis reached out suddenly--desperate to have what she offered him. Her hand was cool in his.

"Stay. What do I have to do to keep you here? He--he needs his mother." _I need his mother_ , Stannis thought to himself, holding her hand tighter.

"Never name him your heir," she indicated were Brynden Snow was passed out in the cradle of Stannis' arm, "and swear to never wed no matter the enticement, as I have. I will stay here if I am free to leave without censure or restraint but the day you close any door to me shall be the self-same day where I escape."

Stannis twitched a smile to her, he couldn't help but agree with terms such as those. The court would learn to accept his bastards by her or they wouldn't be welcome at his court for long. Lady Sansa, his Sansa, though, she would always be welcome.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! If you are looking for more awesome things to read you should check out TheSweetestThing's collection of writings here on Ao3, she is absolutely fantastic and an excellent writer. Leave her all the kudos and comments!
> 
> ...that said...I would love to hear what you think of this, if you have time to comment!


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